Features

Highlights from the current issue

Traffic JammingBy Jordan Heath-Rawlings
Cities around the world are finding ways to drastically reduce, or even eliminate, car use. It could happen here too

in a few places around the world — the list of locations is growing slowly but surely — the populace woke up on World Carfree Day, dressed, and ate their breakfast, then got on their bicycles, put on their shoes, or pulled out their bus pass, and made their way to work on streets mostly free of automobiles. Just like any other day.

These car-free and car-limited communities are scattered around the world, blueprints for the steps that larger cities can take to reduce their reliance on the automobile. These places show that it actually is possible to overcome our history and our habits and start to move away from the auto-centric planning that defines all of North America.

ALSO IN THIS ISSUE

AutoholicsBy Tim FalconerThe author of Drive: A Road Trip through Our Complicated Affair with the Automobile proposes a 12-step program for breaking our addiction to cars.

It's the people who drive (or drink) all the time — mindlessly, compulsively, because they can't help themselves — who do the real damage to themselves and others. That's addiction — and collectively, we're pretty close to hitting bottom. The automobile has wasted our time, choked our air, and destroyed many downtowns while spurring sprawl in the suburbs. Obviously, cars aren't about to go away completely (though we can certainly hope they change dramatically over the next few years). But let's never forget: the fault, dear drivers, lies not in our cars, but in ourselves.

Your money or your lifeBy Carolyn Morris
In a country with supposedly universal coverage, some of the most vulnerable must pay cash for health care. It costs them their livelihoods — and sometimes their lives

Citizenship and Immigration Canada plans to accept as many as 265,000 new immigrants in 2009, most of whom will settle in Toronto, Vancouver, and Montreal. Those immigrants will spend their first three months without public health care insurance. There are a further estimated 100,000 to 300,000 undocumented workers living in Canada without health-care insurance. Some come as temporary workers, or as visitors, and simply never leave. Others apply for refugee status and remain in the country even if they're not accepted. Many have an "implied" right to be in the country because they're applying for certain types of status, or they're between permits. They are halfway legal, halfway not. They work, have families, buy food and clothing. They go to school, go on dates, fall in love, break up. But if they get sick, they can't go to the hospital unless they pay up front. Or they can go without money — as long as it's an emergency — and wait for the bill in the mail.

Where the buffalo roamWhy are Canadian farmers struggling to make a living when food is in short supply and prices are skyrocketing?By Margarett Webb

After “The Apology”Canada’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission on residential schools will span five years and cost $60-million as we struggle with human-rights violations to big for the courts. But will it help?By Catherine Rolfsen

Look back, JackWith its exclusive fixation on winning more seats, the NDP has sacrificed the opportunity to build a truly progressive movement. At the 75th anniversary of the CCF, James Laxer argues that to save the present we need to remember the pastBy James Laxer

The addict’s last refugeA unique facility on B.C.’s Sunshine Coast may offer a key to treating heroin addictionBy Peter Tupper

There will be bloodIt’s Calgary Stampede time again — the annual celebration of the traditional cowboy life. But the history of Canada’s Wild West reads very differently than the festival’s romanticized fableBy Colin Snowsell

Get your goatImages of cute, cuddly animals have replaced sad-eyed children in the latest campaigns to market charitable giving to Africa. But what does it really mean to buy a village a goat?By Claire Ward

Plastic unfantasticIn the middle of the Pacific Ocean is a “garbage patch” at least the size of Texas. The expanse of sea-born waste points to a growing global crisis: the overuse and poor disposal of cheap and abundant plasticsBy Zoe Cormier

Courting catastropheAndrew Nikiforuk, Calgary journalist and author of Pandemonium: Bird Flu, Mad Cow Disease, and Other Biological Plagues of the 21st Century, talks to This Magazine about deadly bananas, the beetle that ate British Columbia and life in an age of “unending emergency”By Graham F. Scott

Outbreak!Why is our resistance to antibiotics escalating? The villians may be different than we think. Some scientists say the cause could be genetically modified E. coli casually used in industrial labs—and high school classroomsBy Alex Roslin

Server errorMillions of people a day rely on Google to search, email, schedule, map, study, and Youtube. So what happens if it fails?By Richard Poplak

Last resortsCuba’s socialist economy relies on tourism, which was ramped up out of necessity following the collapse of the U.S.S.R., but foreign dollars are creating a new class of CubansBy Maria Amuchastegui

Paper routeJournalists for Human Rights has a high-minded and worthy goal: send Canadians to Africa to train reporters and editors there. But, as it turns out, it’s often the Africans who end up training their “teachers”By Sara Minogue[Online soon]

Pulling strings, making troubleFrom the productions of Dora-award winner Ronnie Burkett to the giants who populate protests, political puppets are acting upBy Jennifer O’Connor

“Tear down that wall!”Activists demanding a better fate for Palestinians have chosen a potent accusation—the new apartheid—to rally support for the growing anti-Israel boycott. Their belief: what forced change in South Africa can provoke change in the Middle East. But it may not be that easy—or that simpleBy Sue Ferguson

Friends ’til the endThe Christian right’s support for Israel can not be taken as support for Jews. In reality, anti-Semitism lies at the heart of Christian Zionism and more Jewish leaders should loudly denounce itBy Jesse Rosenfeld

A dramatic revivalAmidst the rubble of a West Bank refugee camp, creativity and self-expression take centre stage at the Freedom Theatre, a place where Palestinian kids experience something they see little of: hopeBy Richard A. Johnson

Top secretSPP could reshape North America. So why do so few know just what Bush, Harper and Calderón are up to?By Jessica Johnston

Rising upA retrospective on four under-appreciated Canadian rebellions whose effects are still with usBy Carla Tonelli, Angie Gallop, Jim Stanford, and Craig Saunders

No place for homeAfter years of neglect, Vancouver’s notorious Downtown Eastside now faces a development boom that is threatening to displace thousands of low-income residentsBy Sean Condon[Online soon]

Collateral DamageFor almost 30 years, Agent Orange was sprayed on Canadian soil—and the locals are still feeling the effectsBy Chris Arsenault

Silenced MajorityOur electoral bodies are 80 percent men. If we do not act, if will take four generations to reach anything like equality. Is proportional representation the way?By Doris Anderson

A Gap in the MovementThird wavers may not have an abortion caravan, but they’ve got record labels. Setting Feminist Insecurity aside, how do young women find a place in the movement?By Audra Williams [Online soon]

The Rap BattlesThe double standards of Canadian media don’t add up to 50 Cent. Probing the language of our panicked press, there’s “Just A Lil Bit” of biasBy Dave Morris

High FinanceBillions are going into cannabis sales. Where’s the cash from this secret economy going? Bud Inc. has the whole country buzzing By Brian Joseph Davis

Invisible Threat How can a real-life pandemic compete with the avian flu of our imaginations? By Anurita Bains

Free to Be, CBC The lockout showed that the price of free broadcasting is eternal diligence. If Canadians own the CBC, why can’t we hire and fire? By Suzanne Alyssa Andrew

Organized Religion How a drive to unionize the United Church of Canada is dividing ministers like never before By Sabitri Ghosh

Betting the Farm The Lanark Landowners Association has staked the future of rural Ontario on the fall of big government By Helen Forsey

Alive and Kicking Why living with AIDS is every bit as complicated as dying from it By Matt Semansky

Feminism For Sale Find out the real reason the women’s movement is losing momentum, and why political action is the only way to take down the patriarchyBy Joseph Heath and Andrew Potter

PK and Fly
Parkour is one serious sport. Mixing urban athleticism with an appreciation of architecture, it’s about connecting with the concrete and, with any luck, landing on your feet. Now, as corporations come calling, traceurs, as they’re called, must decide which way to run By Jaclyn Law

Hear No EvilDeaf since childhood, Bobby Suwarak grew up in isolation, able to understand no known language. Now charged with a crime, he has presented Nunavut’s court system with a problem. But the form of charades he uses to communicate is being used by deaf Inuit across the territory, leading one researcher to call for the court to recognize it too By Sara Minogue

The Church of Please and Thank You
The growth of English abroad is putting words in the mouths of students—even changing their identities. “Let’s do lunch” and other ways ESL teachers spread the gospel of English overseas
By Julie Traves

Trial By FireThey were some of the highest-ranking officers in the Sudanese army and, last year, they became enemies of the state. Their crime? They refused to bomb civilians
By Benjamin Joffe-Walt

Magical Mystery Cure
What would you do if a lobotomy was your only hope for happiness? Today the procedure is called psychosurgery and it continues to be prescribed to treat mental illness, though many psychiatrists argue the mentally ill need it like a hole in the head By Danielle Egan

The Great Byte Hope
Transhumanists envision a radical future in which man and machine are one and death is a relic of the past. Should we prepare to enter the post-human state, transcending the limits of our natural bodies, or should we let evolution run its own course?By Andre Mayer

Blood Oranges
Winner of the 2004 prize for creative non-fiction By Munju Ravindra

Killer cop
Jocelyn Hotte used his elite RCMP training to stalk and kill his ex-girlfriend. Why did police ignore her call for help? And why have they done nothing to address the secret shame of conjugal violence among cops in the years since the attack? What will it take for the hidden abuse to finally hit home? By Alex Roslin

Collective souls
Co-operative values are catching on among Canadian bands, spawning large ensemble acts of 10 or more members who share the spotlight as well as sharing royalties and responsibility. For some, it’s a political statement, a musical manifesto setting out equal roles and equal rights, but for others, like the break-out success Broken Social Scene, bigger is just better By Liisa Ladouceur

Different drummer
Industry outsider knew almost nothing about being a record executive four years ago when he started MapleMusic.com, which is perhaps the secret behind how his online distribution company has come to challenge an industry raised on robbery, helping some of the country’s top indie bands assert their independence By Bruce Gillespie

Layton’s last hurrah
The charismatic NDP leader fell far short of an unqualified electoral triumph. But as kingmaker to the minority Liberals, Jack Layton wields enormous power. And that could be the party’s salvation— or his personal downfall By Annette Bourdeau

Man trouble What’s a modern man to do in an age of rapidly changing expectations? The most beleaguered rebel by questioning themselves; others simply blame women. Welcome to the frontier of male disaffection By Andre Mayer

Crossing the line Three years after September 11, has it finally become acceptable to make outrageous statements again? How patriotism stifled freedom of speech By Bill Reynolds

Yankee go home! It started as the sound of rustling underbrush behind the heavily wooded Salt Spring Island hillside where I live. It’s not a deer, I thought. It’s not a cougar. Way too noisy. It must be people. Now it’s highly unusual, you understand, to hear people in this neck of the woods. There are miles of uninhabited bush behind our cabin; I refer to it as supernatural nowhere BC. If Walden had a bush, this would be it
By Grant Shilling

We’re not in Dixie anymore, Bubba NASCAR dads have become the swing vote in this fall’s US presidential election. But to understand the man, you must first try to understand what drives him By David Hayes

This boat is my boat First they stole our land, then our methods of water transportation. Cultural appropriation aside, is it too much to ask that weekend warriors give the canoe and kayak some respect? By Drew Hayden Taylor

There ain’t no cure for the summer camp blues If you want a picture of camp, imaging a sneaker stamping on a human face—for a whole summer. How one middle-class kid not only survived the Orwellian experience of self-improvement camp, but lived to tell the tale By David Leach

This isn’t summer stock For the current and former mental health patients who make up the Workman Theatre Project, acting is a step toward healing—a way to take control of their minds and bodies By Caitlin Fullerton

Lords of the new church From the godfather of punk to the underground’s fairy gothmother, meet the leaders of a lifestyle revolution, whose style and attitude long ago transcended the mainstream By Liisa Ladouceur